Motor vehicle regulations around the world require that motor vehicles display a license plate indicative of the registration of that vehicle. The usual attachment of the license plate to a motor vehicle is by threaded fasteners passing through mounting holes of the license plate and then threading into aligned attachment holes of the motor vehicle, for example at the rear deck lid, lift gate, rear deck panel, or bumper.
License plate size is not universal around the world. There are, for example, different size license plates, with different mounting hole locations, used in each of North America, Europe, Japan, Korea, and the Persian Gulf States of the Middle East. Problematically, since automakers ship motor vehicles to a number of countries, the license plate attachment must be correctly chosen to fit the mounting holes of the license plate of the country of destination, and this requires an added cost involved in the customization. In this regard, it is presently customary to provide license plate attachment holes into the vehicle sheet metal specific to the country of destination of the vehicle, or alternatively, to not provide any license plate attachment holes at the manufacturing facility and default to the dealer the job of drilling the license plate attachment holes (which holes are problematic in that they result in exposed metal edges which are prone to rust initiation). Into each attachment hole a respective plastic (nylon) nut is secured, and a threaded fastener is placed respectively through each mounting hole of the license plate and then threaded into the nut. These customary license plate attachment hole options involve a cost impact, part number proliferation, sequencing, scheduling and warranty issues, as well as the need to install plastic appliques to hide unused attachment holes.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is a license plate attachment system which can somehow universally accommodate different sized license plates used around the world.